Category Archives: Literary Shovel List

Another month, another 5 books finished! I can’t guarantee I will be this consistent all year, but so far in 2018 I have finished 5 books and published 6 blogs each month! This means I am now on at 15/30 on my Goodreads Challenge – half way to my target and we’ve only had three months so far. Also, a third of the way to matching the total of 45 books which I managed to finish off in 2017!

There’s another bookmark on the way. Might just about get it finished before the month is over, but not in time for this blog. It is nearly done though. Only needs the back-stitching finishing and a tassel of some sort adding.

So, anyway, we’re at the end of March 2018, I have 77 followers now, so thanks to all of you for putting up with my random waffle, and welcome to some of the new followers who have discovered this blog of late. These blogs go right back to August 2010, so feel free to mosey around in the archives. I have published over 200 book blogs, and have been pretty prolific in the last year or so. Before that, it was rather inconsistent.

Time to move on to the actual books now, lol, and let’s look at what I’ve finished off in March. My first finish for the month, and it seems like ages ago now, was The Lady and the Unicorn, by Tracy Chevalier, which was a brilliant read. A couple of quick-to-finish children’s books came next, Fantastic Mr Fox, by Roald Dahl, and The Slimy Stuarts, by Terry Deary, the latter being a book from the Horrible Histories series. I had picked up a few Horrible Histories books at a charity shop in Swinton after work one night!

Towards the end of this month, in the past week or so, two more books have taken my monthly total up to five. First up was my ebook, The Man In the Middle, by Howard Webb, which had started off as my match day book as I had been reading it to pass the time in the car while stuck in the car park at Old Trafford, or in Trafford Park, on the way home from one of our home games, but I ended up reading it on days when I wasn’t heading to the Hallowed Ground, and finished it off at home one night last week!

Bringing my monthly total to a consistent five, I finished off The Word for World is Forest, by Ursula K. Le Guin, last night, thus adding another science-fiction book to my read list, and Don Davidson to my Literary Shovel List! Whilst I didn’t find him quite as anger-inducing as the bigoted nutjob Joseph Strorm, Davidson certainly needs a good thwack on the head with The Shovel, and he has to be added to Humans In Science Fiction Novels Who Are An Embarrassment To The Species! As with my feelings of sympathy towards the mutants in The Chrysalids, I quickly took the side of the “Creechies” in Le Guin’s novella. I think, once I’d have given Davidson the Shovel treatment, I would then grab him warmly by the throat and yell “Stop showing us all up, you arrogant knobhead!”

At least, for now, the interplanetary embarrassment is only in works of fiction. Bad enough that, in real life, there are too many dicks here on Earth who embarrass the species as a whole, and their part of the planet in particular, without going to new planets and behaving in that manner! The novella was written in the late 60s and early 70s, being first published in 1972, the year before I came into this world. It’s easy to see it as a damning criticism of some of the worst atrocities committed during the war in Vietnam, but it’s still pretty relevant now, especially with the concept of male privilege – you could see some of the “yumans” in the plot, Davidson in particular, exhibiting what might be called Earthling Privilege, lording it over the poor Creechies whose planet they’d invaded and buggered up ecologically! Having screwed their own planet up in the first place, they’ve buggered off to mess some other planet up as well and piss off the inhabitants.

Don Davidson definitely joins the Shovel List. By contrast, I liked Raj Lyubov, who was one of the few who made an effort to treat the Creechies with respect and learn about their way of life.

Will I continue with The Chrysalids? Maybe, but it is on hold for now. I might even make some attempt at North and South, a final go to see if it does grab me, but if it doesn’t, no point plodding on with it. I will just have to accept it is one of those which hasn’t fizzed on me. Won’t be the first, and I doubt very much it will be the last. I do not persist with books I’m not enjoying. As you already know, I don’t agree with all that bullshit about not giving up. Sometimes, giving up is the wisest thing you can do. If you’re making no progress at something, and not enjoying it, time to pack it in! You might have to try a bit harder if you need to read a book for the purposes of your academic or professional attainment, but if you don’t have to read it for education or employment, and you’re not enjoying it, time to put it down and find a different book!

Hawksmoor‘s still hanging around, and I plan to get some of that read this weekend, another chapter at least, get it past the halfway stage. It’s been on 49% for a while, so time we took it beyond 50, especially if I just accept that North and South isn’t doing it for me. The other book whose title you can see on the wipeboard on the top photo of this blog is Six Little Miracles, by Janet Walton. I found it at a charity shop in Swinton the other day. For those of us who were around in the UK in the 1980s, you may recall the birth of the Walton Sextuplets, the six girls born in 1983 – well, this is their mum’s autobiography, the memoir of growing up, meeting her husband, and trying for a baby – then ending up with half a dozen of them at once!

My first recipe books!

Talking of growing up, Veronica Henry, author of The Beach Hut and How To Find Love In a Book Shop, amongst other novels, posted a photo on Instagram the other day which had me going back to my childhood, as it featured a book I’d received when I was a kid, either a birthday or Christmas present – a recipe book called My Learn To Cook Book – funnily enough, I still have it, alongside The Mr Men Cookbook! Both of those have some damn good recipes in them! The former is by Ursula Sedgwick, and the latter by Roger Hargreaves. Mr Topsy-Turvy’s Upside Down Pudding is particularly good!

Onto recent purchases now, and then we can think about What To Read Next, that great bookworm dilemma, lol! I was in town yesterday, essentially to get my bus and tram pass sorted for another month, but any old excuse to do a spot of retail therapy while there, eh?! The books you see in that photo are Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith, Neuromancer, by William Gibson, and the one at the top of the pile there, Resistance is Futile, by Jenny T. Colgan. That comment by Matt Haig on the cover amused me enormously! “A riotous cocktail of geeks” – there’s a recommendation if ever there was one!

I’ve read a couple of his books, actually, both very different, but both great – The Radleys, and Reasons To Stay Alive. The former is fiction, and very funny, and the latter is autobiographical and a good read, especially if you’re looking for books relating to mental health issues. Also, I have How To Stop Time, and The Humans, right here by Computer Corner, on my science fiction row between the robot bookends!

I could always read one of the new purchases. After all, I’ve finished the Le Guin, so there’s room for some more science fiction on the OC List. Non-fiction is accounted for, of course, with the Walton sextuplets book I mentioned earlier. I will also need a new choice of book on one of my e-readers for match day, so I will have to have a shufty on my Kindle and my Sony Reader to see if there’s anything I really fancy reading or resuming!

I could read The City and The City, by China Miéville, which is about to be dramatised in a 6 part series on the BBC starting just after Easter. That’s a paperback, though, not on my e-readers. I also had my eye on The Cellist of Sarajevo earlier today. I’d previously had two copies, it was one of my notorious Duplicate Books, lol, so I took one in to work with some other books, so that my colleagues can borrow and swap them, but I was giving some thought to reading my remaining copy of the Steven Galloway novel.

Well, I think that’s about it for now. Easter Long Weekend starts here! I will be back again with another blog before too long, lol, but until next time, have a lovely Easter, hope you get plenty of eggs and maybe some books, take care and Happy Reading!

Back again, and talking of back, mine is starting to recover from Sunday’s exertions! The Great Book Sort-Out left me with some discomfort in my lower back. Ended up getting heat patches from Boots on Monday, and also going to the gym with my mum after work so I could have a soak in the jacuzzi! I don’t normally miss having a bathtub – when we had our bathroom done a few years ago now, we did away with an actual bathtub and just had a shower cubicle, but I felt I could have done with a good soak in a bath on Sunday night!

Well, anyway, I did promise a blog about the Slap List and the Shovel List, so I think it’s time we got around to doing it! I have had a Literary Slap List for some years now – Characters from novels are put on this list if they are irritating or mildly annoying and I feel they would benefit from a good slap! However, some characters are just downright bloody awful! Characters who disgust me. Nasty pieces of work. Characters with serious attitude problems, characters who discriminate against other characters… For these, a slap is nowhere near enough, as I realised when I was reading The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham, one lunchtime at work, and I was finding myself absolutely appalled by Joseph Strorm’s attitude. He made me seriously angry and it dawned on me that a mere slap just wouldn’t suffice! Some characters need a heftier punishment! Like being whacked over the head with a particularly large and heavy shovel, for instance!

So, we now have the Slap List and the Shovel List, but which characters are on which list? Let’s go with a few novels I can think of and some of the characters who have made either of my rolls of shame, lol! WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS AHEAD!

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

Ooh, there’s a few from Pride and Prejudice who annoyed me! I had to study this novel at high school for GCSE English Literature, as I have mentioned in previous blogs over the years, and there are several characters who annoyed me! Funnily enough, though, NOT Mr Darcy! Weirdly, he has never gone on my lists. I see him as quite a misunderstood character anyway, but let’s move on to the irritating people, which has to include three members of the Bennet family! For those who need a reminder, Mr & Mrs Bennet have 5 daughters, all old enough to marry, and Mrs B is fixated with trying to get them fixed up with blokes, married off, and out of the house as soon as she can.

Kitty and Lydia, the two youngest daughters, are two of the slappable characters here. Both of them are what we, in this day and age, would probably call airhead bimbos! All they ever do is ogle over soldiers from the local regiment! They are just vacuous airheads who are after getting off with fit squaddies, basically! If they weren’t slappable enough, their damn mother actually encourages this ogling! Therefore Mrs Bennet joins her two youngest girls on the slap list for being an overgrown bimbo!

Mr Collins, the vicar, or parson, or whatever – member of the clergy, anyroad, is the other one on the slap list. Can we say obsequious little toad? Ah yes, thought we could! He basically just sucks up to Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and is such an arse-licker that he definitely has to go on the Slap List! One of my fave bits when I was studying this novel at school was when Mr Bennet wittily says to Elizabeth;

“From now on, Elizabeth, you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never speak to you again if you do not marry Mr Collins, and I will never speak to you again if you do!”

I did mention Lady Catherine de Bourgh before, when I was saying how much Mr Collins licked her arse, and she used to be on the Slap List, but that’s because I didn’t previously have a Shovel List! However, I think she needs to change list and needs the Shovel as she is just a disagreeable old bag if ever there was one, and she has such double standards! She expects all other young ladies to have a list of accomplishments as long as their arms, but she makes excuse after excuse for her own offspring, claiming she’s too weak to do any of these activities. She’s not, she just simply lacks the talent at some of them, or hasn’t had the chance to try! So, it’s a whack on the head with the shovel for Lady C, and 4 characters getting a good slapping!

The Catcher In the Rye – J. D. Salinger

Yep, our old mate, Holden Caulfield! The archetypal teenage lad who really can’t be arsed with school, fails most of his subjects, having been turfed out of several other schools previously, and bunks off to New York to try to get served in a bar, although he’s clearly under-age… Holden remains on the Slap List. He reminds me of a lot of teenage lads when I was a teenage girl! All the stupid ones who arsed around and didn’t impress me at all! However, a shovel would be too harsh, so a slap it is!

The Chrysalids – John Wyndham

OK, so I am actually only around a quarter of the way through this one, but this is the reason I needed to invent the Shovel List… Joseph Strorm. Narrow-minded bigot, and clearly a hot-headed one who flew off the handle at his own son just because the lad expressed a thought that many of us have thought from time to time… if only we had an extra pair of hands! And then this arsehole flies into another rage at his lad simply because he has befriended a girl who has six toes!

As I have already said many times, I cannot stand people like Strorm. They just disgust me immensely, so Joseph Strorm is most definitely on the receiving end of a damn good whack on the head with The Shovel!

A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara

Basically, there are a whole host of characters whose mistreatment of Jude is deserving of a damn good walloping with the Shovel! Not sure re JB – he certainly deserves a slap, but perhaps he should get the shovel – after all, he mocked Jude, who was supposedly a friend, taking the piss out of his limping, and this essentially split the friends up quite badly – only Malcolm remains friends with JB after that incident. Jude won’t forgive JB, and nor will Willem. But if JB deserves the shovel, then there’s a whole host of other characters who need to be flattened into the ground with repeated blows from the shovel!

Jude’s own so-called parents, for starters. I mean, we don’t even know who they are! We discover that Jude was discovered by a monk. I got the impression that Jude was abandoned either as a baby or a very young child, and a monk found him and took him back to the monastery, which is where he was raised. However, Brother Luke, and several other monks, abused him, physically and sexually, so they deserve the shovel, too.

Then, when he is rescued by the cops, he is abused again while in state care, so yet more characters in need of the shovel, and then there’s Caleb. He meets Jude at a dinner party, but basically abuses Jude for being disabled (which has come as a result of all the previous abuse he’s been subjected to, poor bloke) so there’s a whole host of total arseholes who have treated Jude like shite throughout his life, and every single damn one of them needs a shovel to be brought down on their heads with great force!

So, those are a few recipients of either slaps or shovels from a selection of novels. More will be added if I can remember any, and if you have any suggestions for characters from books who need a good slap, or a whack over the head with a shovel, please feel free to let me know! Now we should move on, I think…

Happy Pi Day! OK, it’s not the way round we do the date here in the UK, as we do it dd/mm/yyyy, but in the US, they do it mm/dd so today is 3/14 to them, and 3.14 is the start of Pi, that never-ending number! The only book I can think of which mentions Pi in the title is the obvious one – Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, so, for a bit of fun, we shall look at books with PIE in the title! This may make you hungry, so perhaps you might want to eat a pie, lol!

I might be a bit biased here, as a northerner and a big fan of Stuart Maconie and his writing, but this pie-themed part of our blog does give me a chance to mention TWO of his books – Pies and Prejudice, and The Pie at Night, the latter of which I was probably finishing off this time last year! I’d started reading it on the coach when I went down to Wembley in late February for the EFL Cup Final against Southampton, so I must have finished it off in early or mid March, I reckon. It’s what I’m reading in the photo at the top, and I got my copy signed by Stuart last year when he came to Waterstone’s.

Another book I read and enjoyed, although this one is historical fiction, is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. This is set in Guernsey during World War II, the Channel Islands being the only part of the British Isles which were actually occupied by the Germans. It was first published in 2008, and I read it for our book club some time ago now, so possibly around 2009 or 2010. It has been made into a film now. Mary Ann Shaffer died in early 2008, and when her health was deteriorating she asked her niece, Annie Barrows, to finish the rewriting and editing, hence both ladies are credited as authors.

There’s also Gordon Ramsay‘s autobiography, Humble Pie, which I mean to get around to sometime soon, and a couple more with pie in the title which I have yet to read, those being Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie, a YA novel by Jordan Sonnenblick, and The Sweetness At the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley, a mystery novel.

Also, not quite pie-titled, but Jay Rayner was on Masterchef the other day when I was catching up with episodes of the latest culinary contest, and he’d set a brief for the contestants to make him a pie! Sweet or savoury, he didn’t mind! I read his book, The Ten (Food) Commandments towards the end of 2016 when I could only read non-fiction books for the rest of that year because I had an epic Book Hangover on the fiction front after finishing A Little Life!

So, now we’ve had a few Pie Titles for Pi Day, a mention of pies on Masterchef, and I shall also get in the fact that I had a pie for lunch, lol, I think it’s time we had a brief progress report on the Ongoing Concerns, and then I shall bring this to a close for now. Two books have made progress, my ebook The Man in the Middle, by Howard Webb, which is now up to 26% having read it on the way home from the match last night and continued reading it once I got home – needed cheering up after that shite performance, and Webb’s book is VERY funny! He’s actually only a couple of years older than me, so 46 or 47 now – I’m heading rapidly towards 45, lol! The speed in RPM of a 7 inch single, as those of us who remember records and record players will know! Actually, they’re coming back now, and my mum bought a turntable not long ago, so I could dig out my record collection, lol!

Anyway, The Word for World is Forest, by Ursula K. Le Guin reached the 25% mark earlier this evening, so that’s another one reaching the first quarter!

I have taken North and South off the list for now. I have attempted to start it, as I said in a recent blog, but it’s not doing anything for me. Maybe I am totally out of the habit of reading classics, but I’m sure others have grabbed me more in the past. Maybe, though, a lot of those were the ones I read years ago at school or uni, the ones where I had a teacher or lecturer who was able to point out relevant bits to our class? I think that does help when it comes to the classic novels. Mind you, I read Great Expectations as an adult, long after my formal education ended, and enjoyed that without needing an educational professional to give me a hand! So it could just be that North and South is a bit slow-going for me? I shall give it more of a try, but if I find myself thinking I’m just plodding through this, I may have to give up on it and admit that at book club. If I find myself thinking “I’d rather be reading something else” when I’m reading it, it’s time to call it a day and put it to one side.

It’s also time I called it a day with this blog entry! Wow! Look how long it is! I’d better finish things off and blow the final whistle on it as it seems like it’s gone into extra time and a penalty shoot-out, lol! Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Good evening to all of you! Happy International Women’s Day to all my fellow female bookworms! I have said on here, many a time, that it does not bother me who the author is, I just read whatever takes my fancy, and always have done, but I shall have a look at some of my favourite books by female authors. I will also be introducing you to a new concept which cropped up the other day when a character in The Chrysalids pissed me off big-time, plus I will be doing the usual updates on the Ongoing Concerns and waffling on about a few non-book matters as well, no doubt, so here goes…

If I am going to focus on books by my fellow females, I shall start with a few series I have enjoyed, and then go on to some stand-alone books. I’ve not really read that many series, but one I did read in my teens was the Kevin and Sadie series by Joan Lingard, a series of five books set in Northern Ireland and England during “The Troubles” in the 70s and which I read when I was around 15 or 16. The Twelfth Day of July starts the series, and it is followed by Across the Barricades, Into Exile, A Proper Place, and Hostages To Fortune. You can still find them in the YA section at Waterstone’s, actually, should you wish to read them. Possibly a bit dated in 2018, and might even constitute historical fiction by now as they were set in the 1970s!

Rather obviously, J. K. Rowling has to be on this list as author of the Harry Potter series, which I started reading when I was a civil servant at Albert Bridge House in town – a colleague recommended the books to me! I’m not naming all 7 books, I’ve listed them already on the Joanne’s Bookshelf list for 2018 on List Challenges, and it’s well-known enough without going through them individually. The series, of course, also gives us Ravenclaw, the house for those of wit and learning, the Hogwarts library, and a female book nerd heroine in Hermione Granger! Oh, and Flourish and Blott’s bookshop on Diagon Alley, of course!

The late great Sue Townsend is on the roll of honour for giving us Adrian Mole and his diaries! I think I have read most, if not all, the Mole books, but the first two are still my huge favourites, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 and The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole. My copies of those books have had to be sellotaped back together countless times!

Now onto female authors of whose works I have read two or three and really enjoyed them, so we have to honour Hannah Kent and thank her for both Burial Rites and The Good People, both awesome books which I would totally recommend! Still on historical fiction, I have now read and loved two books by Tracy Chevalier, both Girl With a Pearl Earring and The Lady and the Unicorn, so she joins the roll of honour and I still have a few more of her books which I have yet to read. Helen Fielding gave us the brilliant and funny Bridget Jones’ Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. There is another one too, but I’ve not got round to that as yet.

To bring this bit to a close before moving on with the blog, a few books which I have loved, and these are stand alone books. Last month, I read and loved Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman. Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, by Maria Semple, was also a book club book, albeit a few years ago now, and I loved it. Again, very funny! To complete a trio of hilarious reads by females, I recommend Cheer Up Love: Adventures in Depression with the Crab of Hate, by Susan Calman. I saw this in Waterstone’s in the Arndale Centre a few years ago, started reading it and had to buy it as it was too funny not to purchase it! I also recommend it if people want books about mental health.

Right, so… onto other matters and this concept came into my head the other day, at lunchtime, when I was having my lunch and reading The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham, and one character, the father, Joseph Strorm, had me absolutely fuming! As you know by now, I HATE bigotry and narrow-mindedness, so this guy being a total nutjob, utterly disgusted me. His attitude towards the so-called “mutants” is appalling, his attitude towards his own son, how he flew off the handle at David just because the lad made a very normal conditional statement that I think every human has made at times – wishing they had another pair of hands! And to strike him for simply being friends with a girl with 6 toes… I was absolutely bloody LIVID reading this! I can’t remember the last time I hated a fictional character so much – hell, not even Dolores bloody Umbridge in the Harry Potter books had me fuming this much!

I think it’s because I see the so-called “mutants” as equivalent to people with disabilities. I myself have a gland which has never worked, so I was totally incensed at Joseph Strorm’s attitude! If they’ve got 6 toes, or 4 hands, or whatever, so what?! I think, deep down, Strorm is just jealous! Who wouldn’t like another pair of hands? It would, quite literally, come in handy! I know what it’s like to have a body which doesn’t quite behave normally, due to my lazy-arsed non-working thyroid gland, so I am on their side!

Thus, I was so angry at this nutjob character, that I wanted to do something very unpleasant to the bigoted bastard! That’s when I became inspired to come up with the Shovel List. I already have the Literary Slap List, of course, for characters who are merely annoying – characters who could do with a good slap because they’re irritating or stupid, but a slap would not suffice in this instance. Needs something a bit more harsh, like being whacked on the head with a large, heavy shovel, for instance! Thus I have created the Literary Shovel List for the worst offenders in literature. Characters who get you so wound up that you would dearly love to knock seven shades of shit out of them…

In a coming blog, I will expand more upon this theme and list some characters on the Slap List, and some who thoroughly deserve to go on the Shovel List. These lists are my book-related equivalent of yellow and red cards in football… the Slap List is for characters who need a warning that their conduct or attitude is irritating or annoying me, the Shovel List is for those whose conduct or attitude disgusts me, thus they need the literary equivalent of the grand order of the early bath!

As we have been mentioning The Chrysalids, it’s time we got to the Ongoing Concerns and some recent reads. I am now on for 13/30 on my Goodreads Challenge for 2018, and have read 3 books so far in March. After finishing The Lady and the Unicorn, I have wolfed down a couple of children’s books, both of which were brilliant, fun, quick reads. Fantastic Mr Fox, by Roald Dahl, was followed by The Slimy Stuarts, from the Horrible Histories series, by Terry Deary. Those two have been Handbag books as they were slim enough to carry home that way after I bought them, but they were so quick that they never went onto the Ongoing Concerns list!

I bought a book the other day, although not a children’s book, which I feel is borderline as to whether it goes on the OCs or not. It is 128 pages long so it just about might go on the list. The book is The Word for World is Forest, by the late Ursula K. Le Guin. I have got another couple of her books in, as I have mentioned in previous blogs, but this one is pretty slim, about the same length as The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells. That did go on the OC List at the time, so this one might, but it depends how quickly I read it!

Hawksmoor remains at 49%, currently topping the OC List despite the fact that I only made it to 49% and didn’t get it beyond halfway. The Chrysalids is currently at 27% despite my wish to wallop Joseph Strorm over the head with a shovel, as documented previously in this blog, lol! The Word for World is Forest HAS gone on the list at 12% thus far, and that officially ends the OC List for now as my match day e-book is only at 3% read and my new book club book has not been started yet. I only really put books on when they reach 10%

There were three of us at book club last night, myself, Stephanie, and Alison, who is one of my council colleagues. We all loved Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, and, after a good chat, we set the date of the next meeting for 11th April, and went off to find a suitable book. We figured out that we hadn’t read a classic for quite some time, so we decided it was overdue and settled on North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell. Nick and Diane, if they can make it, will be very happy as they love Gaskell’s writing and volunteer at the Gaskell Society!

As you may have noted, all the books on the OC List, and book due to go on if I get to at least 10%, are works of fiction, meaning I am still short of a non-fiction book for the list. Does mean I could probably have a hardback and read that at home as my other Ongoing Concerns are all paperbacks at present.

The Winter Paralympics start tomorrow, with coverage in the UK courtesy of Channel 4, so if I am distracted from reading, you will know it’s probably winter sports action on the telly getting my attention again! Saturday, I will be at Old Trafford as United take on Liverpool in a lunchtime kickoff – I hate those! 12:30 is no time to start a footy match. Saturday afternoon at 3pm is the PROPER time for football. End of! Anyway, I hope to get my ebook read on the way home and make more progress with The Man in the Middle by Howard Webb.

Sunday is Mother’s Day here in the UK, so the likelihood is that I will be out and about with my mum at various stages of the day! Eating out, that sort of thing. I might possibly blog again before Sunday, but in case I don’t, I hope all my followers here in the UK who are mums have a very happy Mother’s Day and that they receive some good books, or at least gift cards for book stores, from their offspring! Until the next time I blog, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

The Chrysalids – John Wyndham

The Twelfth Day of July – Joan Lingard

Across the Barricades – Joan Lingard

Into Exile – Joan Lingard

A Proper Place – Joan Lingard

Hostages To Fortune – Joan Lingard

The Harry Potter Series – J. K. Rowling

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 – Sue Townsend

The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole – Sue Townsend

Burial Rites – Hannah Kent

The Good People – Hannah Kent

Girl With a Pearl Earring – Tracy Chevalier

The Lady and the Unicorn – Tracy Chevalier

Bridget Jones’ Diary – Helen Fielding

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason – Helen Fielding

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman

Where’d You Go, Bernadette? – Maria Semple

Cheer Up Love: Adventures in Depression With the Crab of Hate – Susan Calman